Bald Dragon, Crouching Centipede

Logan-the-Cloud-Dragon couldn’t hide his bald spot. Wigs only flew off when he was flying and he hadn’t enough hair to comb over it. All the other zodiac animals made jokes about his receding hairline behind his back. They gave him no respect at all! Sirius-the-Dragon felt sorry for him. It was bad enough that the poor guy wasn’t very popular among the other dragons, but to have a bunch of farm animals tease him was just sad. So, when Logan ask to borrow a couple of feathers one day, Sirius had molted off –to make a headdress that would stick–how could Sirius say no? “Are you sure that you don’t have a problem with this?” Logan asked, taking the fallen feathers and placing them on his head. “Hey, don’t it mention, man,” Sirius said, smiling. But to himself he thought, It doesn’t matter how many of my feathers you have, I’m still the cute one. Logan’s popularity grew like a garden weed after that day. He was invited to all the dragon parties. His fellow zodiac brethren began to show him more respect and his self-esteem grew, too. All look on him with admiration and amazement. Sadly, the same could not be said about Sirius. His feathers had begun to fall out and didn’t seem to be growing back. He tried herbs, lotions, and even a special diet of banana and peanut butter sandwiches, but they all failed. “Some of Logan’s nerd cooties rubbed off on me!” he whined to his truest friend Shelby-the-Sea-Dragon. “There’s no such thing as nerd cooties,” Shelby said trying to reason with him. “Feather and hair loss is very common for a dragon your age. Stop being so vain! You did a good thing for Logan.” Sirius wouldn’t hear any her of logic. “Shel, I don’t think you understand. You see this?” Sirius pointed to his face. “This is my ‘mojo’. I can’t lose my ‘mojo’. My ‘mojo’ is what makes the lady dragons go loco.” “Well, maybe Logan needed ‘mojo’ more than you,” Shelby said frowning. Sirius sneered at her lack of sympathy. Didn’t she know his looks were the most important thing to him? “No one needs more ’mojo’ than me, baby!” Sirius said, leaving to go to Logan’s sky palace. “And I’m gonna get my ‘mojo’ back, even if I have to pluck it off from Logan’s big, brown dome of a noggin.” Sirius flew up to Logan’s palace and banged on the door. “I know you’re in there, baldy!” said he yelled, hitting the door with all his might. “Come out here and face me like a man, ya cue ball!” When Logan answered the door he had bags under his amiable eyes from going to too many zodiac-animal parties. Logan yawned. “What do you want now, Sirius? I’m very tired and haven’t got my morning coffee yet.” Sirius held his nose at the odor of Logan’s morning breathe. “You know exactly what I want! Give me my feathers back!” Sirius said, pointing a talon in his face. “Ah, my kinsman, it is best to do one good deal and live for one year than it is to do no good deals and live a thousand years,” Logan said twirling his whisker around. “What in the world are you talking about, man?” Sirius didn’t get the other dragon’s wisdom. “It means you’re not getting your feathers back, ‘man’,” Logan said and slammed the door in Sirius’s face. Sirius continued pounding on the door, but Logan’s cloud guards had now surrounded him. “I’m getting my feathers back!” Sirius yelled as the guards drove him away. “No one moves in on my ‘mojo.’ Logan couldn’t go anywhere without Sirius showing up to demand he yield the feathers. He would appear when Logan was hanging out with friends, watching a movie at the theater, and even when he was dreaming! Finally, the cloud-dragon could no longer put up with Sirius’s time-consuming demands. He was a social butterfly now and needed to be well rested. So, Logan developed a plan to make Sirius cease his nagging. “We’ll have a race across the river. If you win, you get your feathers back and I’ll do a silly dance to the song of your choice in front of man and beast alike,” Logan said, once again twisting one of his whiskers. “What happens if you win?” Sirius asked, feeling the top off his newly bald head. “I get to keep every single feather on your body and you have to roll around in the mud puddles with the pigs,” Logan said smirking. Now, normally Sirius would object to such a deal. The river was nasty, had slimy freshwater creatures in it, and other animals sometimes bathed it. However, seeing as the plume on his head was getting thinner and thinner, he had no option but to agree. The two did a claw shake to seal the agreement and went to their starting positions. Shelby agreed to hold the flag, rolling her eyes at the whole silly thing. “I will never understand males,” she said, giving them the signal to start. Sirius and Logan raced neck and neck. They were evenly matched. “Give up, Sirius,” Logan said trying to taunt him. “Your feathers are mine.” “Never!” Sirius said, letting his competitive side show. “I’m going to win this race, regain my magic ‘mojo’, and then you’ll have to go back to your lonely Saturday nights!” As they got closer to the shore, the race looked like it would be a photo finish. But just before the picture could be taken, a small centipede crawled across the shore. Logan’s strong sight picked up on the tiny creature. His face curled in fear. Sirius saw the panic in Logan’s blue eyes and look landward. “That?” he asked, staring at the tiny creature. “You’re letting a little ol’ bug get you all shaken up?” Logan jumped into the air and started floating. “There’s no way I’m finishing this race until that thing is squished.” Sirius crawled on shore and gently picked up the little creature. “Man, this is just a little ‘ol insect,” he said, flying over to Logan and showing it to him up close. “Keep that thing away from me, Sirius!” Logan said, backing away. “I hate creepy-crawlies!” “Creepy-crawlies?” Sirius wobbled his eyes eyebrows with a sly grin. “No, this is just a centipede. You wanna touch it?” Logan shook his head and flew up to hide in a cloud. “I don’t like night crawlers! And I refuse to go anywhere near that thing.” “Sure, man, I’ll keep the ‘big, bad bug’ away from you. All you have to do is give me back my feathers and we’ll call it even.” Lighting flashed out of Logan’s mouth. “No! They’re mine! I would face nine fierce tigers to keep them.” Sirius flew up to the cloud and set the centipede on Logan’s muzzle. “Then you wouldn’t mind if I let a couple of these things lose in your plush palace,” Sirius said, taking out a small jar overflowing with centipedes. “I mean, you‘re the mightiest zodiac-animal, right? I’m sure the other creatures would love to see how brave you are against the little bugaboos.” Logan could feel his skin crawl. His stomach churned at the idea of ten or more of those gross insects in his palace. He looked down at the rest of the beings of the zodiac who were cheering for him to come down and conclude the race. “All right, I’ll give you back your stupid feathers if you promise to never tell anyone about my ‘phobia’.” Logan pulled the plumage off and gave it back to Sirius. “I thought you might see it my way, buddy,” Sirius said, taking the feathers back and removing the centipede from Logan’s snout. “Does that mean the race is a tie?” Logan asked as they headed towards the ground. Sirius grinned. “I’ll think about.” Logan raised an eyebrow at Sirius. “So, is that code for ‘yes’?” Sirius got out his MP3 and a grass skirt and handed them over to Logan. “No, that’s code ‘fat chance,’” Sirius said, pointing to Shelby who held a video camera, ready to film what was about to happen. Logan could see a whole audience of both humans and beasts waiting at the finish line. “Now get out there and shake a tail ‘feather’,” Sirius said. “Or what you have left on your dome.”

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There's a famous as.ian martial arts/romance/ridiculous/famous movie called "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." I laughed really, really hard when I saw your title b/c I was once forced to watch it like 5 times on a 9-hour plane flight. :)

Nice. I know you asked for a few, but I'm only doing one, because otherwise everyone's asking ofr more than one and it gets overpowering. But you can always request more in the future.

From what I've read, I couldn't find many grammatical errors. It's got a good idea, and plot. The big thing I have a problem with is there isn't anything really unique about the words. Instead of using "said," or "asked", try words like "mumbled" or "inquired" or "complained", even. And add some mor... (more »)